In what will come as alarming news to porn lovers everywhere, a new study out of Stanford University shows that the private browsing modes now standard on most browsers can be circumvented. The culprits? Encrypted sites and your own extensions.

In a paper to be presented at the upcoming Usenix security conference, computer scientist Dan Boneh (cough) reveals that the kinky browsing history you were hoping to keep secret could be revealed should a site you visit employ encryption. In this case, browsing data will be retained on your harddrive, where it could later be recovered. Ditto for browser extensions that involve search features.

So what to do? The paper recommends and experiments with the development of extensions that can be safely run while in private mode. Now that you know the risks, don't go blaming Boneh for your next embarrassing web browsing moment. [CrunchGear]